Title 26 › Subtitle Subtitle A— Income Taxes › Chapter 1— NORMAL TAXES AND SURTAXES › Subchapter P— Capital Gains and Losses › Part V— SPECIAL RULES FOR BONDS AND OTHER DEBT INSTRUMENTS › Subpart A— Original Issue Discount › § 1272
You must include as income each day’s share of any original issue discount (OID) on a debt you hold. The day’s share is a pro rata part of the increase in the debt’s adjusted issue price during each accrual period. An accrual period is generally 6 months (or a shorter period at the start). The increase is figured from the adjusted issue price, the yield to maturity (compounded at the end of each accrual period), and subtracting interest paid in that period. Special present-value rules apply when payments can change because of prepayments (for example, some REMIC or mortgage-pool interests). You do not include OID for tax-exempt obligations, U.S. savings bonds, debt with a fixed maturity of 1 year or less, or certain personal loans between people that are not part of a business and do not exceed $10,000 (husband and wife count as one person unless they lived apart all year). If you buy the debt after original issue, your daily OID is reduced by a fraction based on how much you paid above the issue price (adjusted for OID already taxed) compared with the remaining OID. The rule does not apply if you bought the debt at a premium or if you are a life insurance company covered by section 811(b). When you include OID in income, you must increase your tax basis in the debt by that amount. "Purchase" means you acquired the debt and your basis is not set by the seller’s basis.
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Internal Revenue Code — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
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Citation
26 U.S.C. § 1272
Title 26 — Internal Revenue Code
Last Updated
Apr 5, 2026
Release point: 119-73not60